Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 4

KIRKWALL
KIRRIEMUIR
table, giving the tonnage of the vessels entered and
cleared, including their repeated voyages, whether with
cargoes or in ballast : —
Entered.
Cleared.
^
Tear.
British.
Foreign.
Total.
I
British.
Foreign.
Total.
1853, .
1867, .
1874, .
1S82, .
25,755
36,765
147,626
224,371
651
952
1959
25,755
37,416
14S.578
226,330
27,197
37,153
144,441
218,835
651
850
1349
27,197
37,804
145,291
220,184
The number of vessels that entered iu 1882 were 2132
British and 23 foreign, and those that cleared, 2070
British and 16 foreign.
Municipality, etc. — The burgh is governed by a provost,
2 bailies, a dean of guild, a treasurer, and 7 councillors,
and unites with Wick, Cromarty, Dornoch, Dingwall,
and Tain in returning a member to serve in parliament,
Wick being the returning burgh. Corporation revenue
(1883) £220, parliamentary constituency 3S4, municipal
459. For police purposes the burgh is united with the
Seal of Kirkwall.
county. The Duke of Edinburgh visited Kirkwall on
24 Jan. 1882, and was presented with the freedom of
the burgh. The district sheriff-substitute resides here,
and ordinary and small debt courts are held every Tues-
day during session. Justice of peace small debt courts
are held as required. There are markets on the first
Monday of every month, and in August is the Lammas
Fair which used to last for a fortnight, though now it is
pretty much confined to the market on the first Tuesday
after 11 Aug. and the two following days. There are also
a head post office, with money order, savings' bank, and
telegraph departments, 5 hotels, ofllces of the Bank of
Scotland, National, Union, and Commercial Banks,
agencies of 16 insurance companies, a library, established
in 1815, a public news-room to which strangers are ad-
mitted free, the Balfour hospital for the sick, a temper-
ance hall, a literary and scientific association, a young
men's literary association, a branch of the Bible Society,
a branch of the shipwrecked fishermen and mariners
benevolent society, a masonic lodge (Kirkwall Kilwin-
ning, No. 38), a battery of artillery volunteers, the Con-
servative Orcadian (1854) published every Saturday,
the Liberal Orkney Herald (1860) every Wednesday, the
Liberal Northman(l9,1 4) every Saturday, and the Liberal-
Conservative Orkney and Shetland Telegrcqih (1876) every
Thursday. Valuation (1875) £7322, (1883) £11,516.
Pop. of royal burgh (1841) 2205, (1861)2444, (1871)2265,
(1881) 2613 ; of parliamentary burgh (1841) 3041, (1861)
3519, (1871) 3434, (1881) 3923, ofwhom 2169 werefemales.
Houses (1881) 53J' inhabited, 10 vacant, 10 building.
442
See also the works cited under Orkney, and Lord
Teignmouth's Sketches of the Coasts and Islands of Scot-
land (1836) ; Miss Sinclair's Scotland and the Scotch
(1840) ; Neale's Ecclesioloqical Notes on ilu Isle of Man,
Orkneys, etc. (1848) ; Sir Walter Scott's The Pirate, and
Lockhart's Life of Scott under the year 1814 ; Hugh
Miller's Cruise of the Betsey (Edinb. 1858) ; Billings'
Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland, vol.
iii. (Edinb. 1852) ; Sir H. E. L. Dryden's Description
of the Church of St Magnus (Daventry, 1871 ; Kirkwall,
1878) ; and J. R. Tudor's Orkneys and Shetlands (Lond.
1883).
Kirkwood or Braehead, a collier village in Old Monk-
land parish, Lanarkshire, 2 miles SW of Coatbridge.
Pop. (1871) 491, (1881) 667.
Kirk-Yetholm. See Yetholm.
Kirn, a quoad sacra parish in Dunoon parish, Argyll-
shire. Constituted in 1874, it is in the presbytery of
Dunoon and synod of Argyll. Its church was built as
a chapel of ease at a cost of £900. Pop. (1881) 791.
See Dunoon.
Kirnan. See Kilmichael-Glassary.
Kirouchtree. See Kirroughtree.
Kirriemuir, a town and a parish of W Forfarshire.
The town stands, 455 feet above sea-level, on the left
bank of winding Gairie Burn, which separates it from
the suburb of Southmuir ; as terminus of a branch of
the Caledonian, with a commodious station, rebuilt in
1872, it is 3 miles NW of Kirriemuir Junction and 5
WNW of Forfar. Situated on the NW side of Strath-
more, partly on level ground, and partly on the skirt of
a hill, it commands from its higher portion a brilliant
view of a great extent of Strathmore, and chiefly con-
sists of streets arranged in a manner similar to the arms
and shaft of an anchor. Not a few of its houses still are
mean enough, but great improvements which have been
carried out of recent years give pleasing indications of the
presence both of taste and of successful industry. Kirrie-
muir has a post office, with money order, savings' bank,
and telegraph departments, branches of the Bank of
Scotland and the National, Union, and British Linen
Co.'s Banks, 14 insurance agencies, 8 principal inns, 2
Good Templar lodges, a beautiful public cemetery, a
public park, a gas-light company, a horticultural
society, and cricket, bowling, curling, and foot-ball
clubs. The parish church is a handsome edifice of
1786, with a neat spire and 900 sittings. South quoad
sacra parish church, built as a chapel of ease in 1836
at a cost of £1340, acquired its parochial status in
1870, and contains 1021 sittings. Other places of
worship are the North and South Free churches, two
U.P. churches — one built in 1853, and containing 500
sittings, the other fitted up from a trades' hall of 1S15
in 1S33, and containing 604 ; a United Original Seces-
sion church (1807 ; 400 sittings), and St Mary's Epis-
copal church (1795 ; 300 sittings). Webster's Seminary,
and a public, an industrial, and an Episcopal school,
with respective accommodation for 310, 400, 190, and
ISO children, had (1881) an average attendance of 174,
400, 120, and 141, and grants of £144, lis., £345, 6s. 6d.,
£89, 6s., and £97, 0s. 7d. The first of these was founded
in 1835 with the bequest (1S29) of John Webster, Esq. ;
the second was built in 1875 at a cost of £2700.
A weekly corn and provision market is held on
Friday ; four cattle fairs have been extinct for several
years ; a horse fair is held on the second Friday of
March; a cattle and horse fair on the Wednesday
after Glamis May fair, on 24 July or the Wednesday
after, on the Wednesday after 18 Oct., and on the
Wednesday after Glamis November fair ; and a hiring
fair is held on the Term Day if a Friday, otherwise on
the Friday after. Some business is done in the supply
of handicraft produce, and in the retail supply of mis-
cellaneous goods to the surrounding country ; the weav-
ing of brown linen is the staple branch of industry ; and,
amid the great and many changes elsewhere in the linen
manufacture, it here had long the singular character of
always having been carried on by means solely of the
hand-loom. Recently, however, two large power-loom